OREANDA-NEWS. June 24, 2013. The State Duma unanimously adopted in the first reading the draft Federal Law “On Introducing Amendments to Article 178 of the Criminal Law of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts” aimed at synchronizing the efforts of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) and the law enforcement bodies.

The draft law formalizes FAS responsibility to forward to the law enforcement bodies materials about violations of the antimonopoly law that have signs of crimes.

“The draft Law will increase efficiency of cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies and the law enforcement bodies in combating the most dangerous violations of competition, first of all against cartels, price collusions, collusions for dividing markets and bid-rigging”, pointed out the Head of FAS Igor Artemiev.

The draft Law gives guarantees for criminal leniency for physical persons who violated the antimonopoly law and were the first to supply the key information required to hold cartel participants administratively liable.

“There is a “plea bargain” in antimonopoly field”, explained Igor Artemiev. “The new edition of the Law provides both criminal and administrative leniency for such “informers”.

The draft Law also introduces changes to the Federal Law “On Operational and Investigative Activities” that allows FAS to employ the results of operational and investigative activities to consider petitions, materials or cases on violating the antimonopoly law.

The draft Law grants the subjects of investigative and operational activities the right to forward confidential materials to FAS Russia that are necessary to find guild of participants of cartel agreements.